Current Exhibits
The museum's galleries will open for in-person exhibitions in 2025. We hope you have a chance to visit us on campus, but you can also enjoy watching past virtual panels and visiting our virtual museum. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to us via email.
Open January 27 - May 9, 2025
Monday - Friday, 11 am - 5 pm
Closed:
- March 31 - April 4 for spring break
Free admission & open to the public.
Buried Lives: Uncovering the History of Chinese Laborers in the East Bay
In the 1880s, Chinese laborers played a crucial role in constructing the San Leandro Reservoir, yet their stories remained largely forgotten. The excavation of their camp site, discovered nearly a century later, offers a rare glimpse into their daily lives—both on the job and in their camp. Named Yema Po, or "Wild Horse Slope" in Cantonese, after the wild mustangs workers used to help build the dam, the site reveals artifacts that shed light on the workers' experiences, from tools and dishware to game pieces and animal bones. The exhibit also explores the anti-Chinese sentiment of the era, providing a window into the challenges and resilience of these laborers. Visitors will uncover this hidden chapter of local history and step into the lives of the workers who helped shape the East Bay.
Come visit the wild west, a world where American whiskey sparked a Mexican rebellion!
The C. E. Smith Museum of Anthropology invites you to take a step back in time to when the Southwest was under Mexican control, its resources eyed greedily by settlers from the United States. As the U.S. expanded westward, the frontier quickly became a more complicated place. Local Mexican and Indigenous populations were faced with the prospect of sharing their scarce resources with American newcomers. One such easterner, a merchant named Simeon Turley, established a whiskey distillery in northern New Mexico, producing a ripple effect that would end in bloody rebellion. Visit our exhibit now to learn about daily life at Turley’s Mill and the Taos Rebellion of 1847 through artifacts, documents, and oral histories!
Previous Dates: March 11- May 10, 2024, & October 14 - December 13, 2024
Restoring Indigenous Burning in California
Wildfire is enshrouding California in unprecedented ways: destroying homes, taking lives, and toxifying the air. Yet, fire is a necessity for humanity. From time immemorial, Indigenous peoples of California developed positive and reciprocal relationships with fire. Learn about how Indigenous peoples intentionally set fires to maintain critical foods, fibers, and connections to place, while reducing wildfire severity and spread. These practices have profound effects on ecological and cultural revitalization, and have the potential to repair the harm of past land and fire management.
Learn more:
Previous Dates: January 30 - May 6, 2023, October 22 - December 9, 2022,
March 11- May 10, 2024, & October 14 - December 13, 2024
Photo of the Klamath River Prescribed Fire Training Exchange by Stormy Staats
A gallery highlighting traditions and technologies of mud and mud-brick construction
Of Land, Sky, and Humanity
Fundamental to working with adobe is creating adobe structures as a community.
Our exhibition honors this long tradition, and showcases the practice of Joanna Keane-Lopez, an artist and adobera who sees working with adobe as a way of bringing people together. Explore her latest collaboration in this long tradition, which involves working with Cal State East Bay and UC Berkeley students to build hornos (ovens). Visit the museum to discover the process of creating adobe, learn how adobe connects people to the land and sky, and see how adobe installations reveal the beauty in mud, through strength and simplicity.
Previous Dates: January 30 - May 6, 2023, October 22 - December 9, 2022,
March 11- May 10, 2024, & October 14 - December 13, 2024